Maggie Kuhn (continued from page 3)'

political intersect in everyone's lives.

She gently led the group to her next major point: how we are expected to live our lives leads to stultification and age segregation. The young, she contends, are expected to go to school. In mid-life we work, and in old age, we rest. "In old age we are supposed to take it easy; it's nap time, and play time. We are put in boxes; we must move out of our rigid boxes into larger contexts. Life and aging both begin with the moment of conception, so learning should only stop when rigor mortis sets in. Meaningful work is part of responsible living; leisure and creativity should be life-long-why wait?”

One of her main goals is a restructuring and humanizing of the workplace. She recognizes that this will necessitate some major changes in unions and in the "American management model". She' cited work she and others have done to introduce major corporations to flexitime, job sharing, part-time jobs, apprenticeships, and sabbaticals. "Everybody should have sabbaticals, including trash collectors...and retirement should be flexible and optional," she asserted. "We must be informed, fortified, and strengthened, but not stuck in it."

She then presented the Gray Panthers' view of their role in social change: "Social change happens when people work together in small groups. It happens gradually but these are very important groups: we are educators, advocates, organizers, monitors, mediators, and ethical counselors." She described the work several groups are doing in Philadelphia monitoring courts and helping to revise TV broad-

casting codes. She described the role of "the elders" who mediate problems in China: "They are the elders of the tribe, who have lived long and know much."

By 11:00 p.m., many members of the group were showing signs of fatigue. Not Maggie. Every time she mentioned another group she was part of, an organization she has founded, another board she sits on, my admiration for this quiet dynamo increased. Sexuality (continued from page 6)

ship is at stake. But the activity of painting a work of art together, or thinking as one mind together, or having sexual contact together, is simply activity. from which relationship or intimacy can grow. The notion that our relationship depends upon creative outputs, or upon a specific activity, needs to be examined. If the relationship is based on nothing other than the relating-no output, no product, no prescribed outcome-then that kind of relationship can withstand a great deal of change in activity. The ideal relationship from my perspective is one that has the potential to extend into every kind of activity, and yet can withstand very minimal amounts of activity. The mere presence of the other has a fulfilling effect.

I think sexuality exists in every relationship, because it is the formative energy in every person. Sexual arousal makes more energy available, and that's not bad. If there is fear or tension between lesbian and straight women, and if that ends up being the grounds for dividing us as women, then we must re-think or new-think our fundamental assumptions about sexuality.

Love's Labels Lost (continued from page 6)

lifestyle preclude and invalidate one's past?

There are women I love now as friends, as artists, as teachers. There are those I have held as lovers. Am I to call myself bisexual for my past, or heterosexual for my present? Is sexual attraction to women irrelevant if I am involved in a monogamous relationship and do not act on those attractions? And, if past lesbian relationships qualify me indeed as bisexual, must I then come out to the straight community as gay and to the gay community as straight, and then, in fact, where am I?

Labels and definitions seem to be a large part of my problem. All the various splinter groups within the heterosexual and lesbian communities make a common ground hard to find. We are all women, but we are all also individual in our personalities and interests. Trust between various individuals and groups seems tenuous at best. Perhaps paranoia is inevitable because of the patriarchal oppression we've all suf-

fered. But to be open to each other in friendship and sharing as well as suffering is the only way any of us can effect change.

Acceptance and tolerance without the need for labels seems of ultimate importance in all relationships between women. For aren't we all struggling for freedom and self-identity in some way?

BRAVO: To the United Way woman employee who recently filed a sex discrimination suit with EEOC after her position was filled by a man, with similar qualifications, whose starting salary was $5,000 higher than hers. When she objected to this form of discrimination, higher-ups called her "abrasive" and marred her employment record in her personal file with negative comments. Other women employees have left United Way for the same reason, but this is the first time a woman has decided to take action on it.

The Best Musicians Play at...

Every Night

Decbody's Every

Thursdays: Mary Martin

& the Ninth Street Tunas

(women admitted free)

Thursday, November 13 Robin Flower & Nancy Vogl (cover charge $3.50)

Corner of Cedar & Taylor in Cleveland Heights

321-4072